IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Mondal, K.; Sankar, K.; Qureshi, Q.; Gupta, S.; Chourasia, P. | |
| Estimation of population and survivorship of leopard _Panthera pardus _through photographic capture-recapture sampling in western India | |
| 2012 World Journal of Zoology (7): 1-30 | |
Understanding population ecology is fundamental to effectively managing large, wide-ranging carnivores such as the leopard, Panthera pardus. Being elusive and inhabitant of both forested and human dominated landscape, leopard is always in conservation priority. But the information of population dynamics of leopard is scarce because of methodological and logistical problems of sampling populations at the required spatial and temporal scales. In the present study, the population dynamics of leopard was studied based on capture histories of 40 individuals during five years from 2007 to 2011 in Sariska Tiger Reserve, Western India. The data was modeled under a likelihood-based, "robust design" capture-recapture analytic framework and ecological parameters such as time-specific population, density, survival, recruitment, emigration and growth rate was estimated explicitly. The estimated population size of leopard varied from 9+/- 1.5 to 22.2 +/- 3.6 and geometric mean rate of annual population change estimated as landa = 1.04 +/- 0.29. The estimated density of leopard varied from 3.1 +/- 0.4 to 10.7 +/- 1.8 in the effective trapping area with half MMDM model. The overall survival rate of leopard was estimated to be 0.71 +/- 0.06. The "robust design" framework estimated a random temporary emigration parameter of y"=y'=0.23 +/- 0.11. The estimated recruitment of new animals, B varied from 0 +/- 1.9 to 11.7 +/- 3.4. Despite some annual losses and temporal variation in annual recruitment, the leopard population in the study area was comparatively high with other study sites in Asia and Africa. In the present study, the photographic capture recapture technique gave the ability to model mean annual population change and survival rates of leopard, which were sufficiently precise and be useful for management purposes. This non-invasive method can be used for long term investigation of population dynamics of leopard in similar study sites. |
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